Review: The History of Bans on Types of Arms Before 1900

The Supreme Court, in the seminal Bruen decision, held: once the clear text of the Second Amendment is implicated, the burden falls on the government to prove there were widespread and accepted statutory restraints in history which are very similar to the restraints the government is defending.

The law review article by Kopel and Greenlee is the most comprehensive compilation of the laws on ownership and regulation of arms from medieval England through 1900, especially on weapons bans, yet seen by this correspondent. Those laws are of varying relevance to the interpretation of the Second Amendment. The article is astonishingly comprehensive. From the introduction of the article:

In the early history section of the article, one startling fact revealed was the Royal Charter of King James I, in 1606, granted to members of the Virginia Charter perpetual rights to:

The Charter of New England colonies were granted the same rights. The two charters covered all of what would become the original 13 colonies except for the middle region, which contained New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and New Jersey.

THE DUTCH/ANGLO/AMERICAN PRECEDENT OF THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS

Freemen Protect Their Families by Force of Arms
1643 August Dutch-Indian War in New Netherlands... ``On the other hand, the enemy [N.A.`s] is strong and mighty. They have formed an alliance, one with another, with more than seven different tribes, well supplied with muskets, powder, and ball, which they have procured and daily receive from private traders, in exchange for beaver, and with which they murder our people. The woods and thickets are now also useful to them, for they have removed all their women, children, and old men into the interior. The rest of the warriors daily menace our lives with fire and sword, and threaten to attack the fort with all their strength, now consisting of fifteen hundred men...Our population consists, for the most part, of women and children. The freemen (not counting the English) are about two hundred in number, who must protect, by force of arms, their families, which now lie concealed in straw huts, around outside the fort.` Jameson, p.333, “Representation of New Netherland”; O`Callaghan, “Hist. Of New Netherland”, Vol.1, pp.290-291

The Right To Bear Firearms, Side-arms and Other Weapons For Self-Defence

1644 December 16 `the colonists [Dutch in New Netherland] and servants should be bound, under certain penalties, to provide themselves with good fire-arms, and other weapons for self-defence...But it should be [in New Netherland] absolutely forbidden, that either the freemen should sell to the Indians, or the licensd traders to the freemen, any arms or munitions of war, on pain of heavy punishment to be inflicted therefor, lest the Indians, being strengthened thereby, may hereafter be encouraged to do us more injury than they can now, in their impotency, inflict. But it shall be obligatory on the freemen to be provide, each with a good musket and side-arms for self-defence, as already mentioned in the 5th point. An inspection thereof shall be had by the Director every six months.’ O`Callaghan, “Hist. Of New Netherland”, Vol.1, pp.422-423, “Appendix E, Report and Advice on the condition of New Netherland, drawn up from documents and papers placed by the commission of the Assembly of the XIX., dated 15 Dec., 1644 in the hands of the General Chambers of Accounts”

Arms For Security and Defence

1645 in New Netherland: `Means were to be adopted to induce the colonists to form towns and villages, and to provide themselves with arms for their security and defence.` O`Callaghan, “Hist. Of New Netherland”, Vol.2, p.18

1645: “The persons hereinafter specified shall be maintained to garrison the fort, on such allowances as shall be found most advantageous for the Company, and for greater security, the colonists and their domestics shall be holden, under certain penalties, to provide themselves with good muskets, and other weapons for their own defence, so as to be able, in time of necessity, with the garrison, to resist a general attack, without the Director, colonists, or whosoever it may be, having the power to take into the pay of the Company any soldiers...”
O`Callaghan, “Hist. Of New Netherland”, p.560

Right of Possession & Use of Arms For Their Own Defense, Including Ammunition

1649: “New England is divided into four Colonies, which they style Provinces. Each Colony hath its Governor, and neither Patroons, Lords nor Princes are known there ; only the People. Each Governor is like a Sovereign in his place...; and this is what we have learned from divers of the English respecting New England. In Military affairs they have also some ffeneralia [sic]which we shall pass over with a word or two. All their inhabitants, burghers, farmers, planters and servants bear arms, and thereto each particular place hath its arrangement . They are divided into separate companies, and are commanded by their Majors and-Colonel* who are the Governors. la. case of invasion or other necessity each town knows, according to its strength, the quota either in men or money which it must contribute to the member or members in danger, according to the federation and order agreed upon in the case, among themselves: from this league is excepted only the difference which the Southern English have with the Dutch, in regard to occupation and settlement of boundaries and time may determine ...”
“Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York”; Procured in Holland,. England and France, 1856, London Documents XXVI, Vol. .—p.267

1650 in New Netherland: “IV. Whereas their High mightinesses have learnt that the commonality of New Netherland either were not obliged to cultivate, or had neglected the possession and use of arms for their own defence, each of the said inhabitants shal therefore be bound to provide himself with a good musket, with powder and lead, necessary thereto, and be enrolled and formed into a guard, causing the said guns to be stamped and inspected, and all persons are forbidden to sell his stamped gun, or to deprive himself or his family thereof.” O`Callaghan, “Hist. Of New Netherland”, Vol.2, p.134, `Provisional Order for the Government, Preservation and Peopling of New Netherland`

I used to collect fighting knives and had a knife library and while it has been a lot of years I thought there were bans and in fact there were, bans on concealment, bans on using in a fight, and even bans to carry one at all or to sell one.

As you know there was a time when a gun needed a backup weapon, and the Bowie was seen as particularly brutal, and of course, the kind of men who carry a Bowie tend to be brutal men.

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/11/20/the-legal-history-of-bans-on-firearms-and-bowie-knives-before-1900/
“The only firearms ban statute before the Civil War was enacted by Georgia. It outlawed possession, sale, open carry, and concealed carry of the vast majority of handguns. The statute also banned Bowie knives and certain other arms. In Nunn v. State, the Georgia Supreme Court held the statute entirely unconstitutional because of the Second Amendment, except as to concealed carry.”

“Arkansas followed suit with a similar law in 1881. That law also forbade the sale of Bowie knives, dirks (another type of knife), sword-canes (a sword concealed in a walking stick), or metal knuckles.”

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